DVD burners for t42p

[smakdown61]

I would like to upgrade the drive on my t42p to either the single layer dvd burner or dual layer (if there is one). Can anyone point me to some models and places to get it cheap. Thanks!

[bill bolton]

Can anyone point me to

That topic has been discussed extensively here, so please us the search facility and you'll find those answers.

Basically there are no "cheap" options for an internal drive, but plenty for a USB connected drive.

Cheers,

Bill

[fschwep]

Basically there are no "cheap" options for an internal drive, but plenty for a USB connected drive.

I can add that there seems to be a lively trade in brandnew ultraslim USB burners through eBay. I just got one, it's hardly larger than a CD case (actually the whole drive plus cables fits into one of those typical CD/DVD zip-up folders with room to spare for a Cardbus USB hub), it's black to match a ThinkPad, and the drive inside is a Toshiba 2x DVD-R/RW/16xCD-RW/DVD-RAM burner (it came with all the accompanying Toshiba instruction booklets). Takes its power directly from the USB port and/or a PS/2 port (split power cable). I've seen the same sellers offering faster multiformat burners (quadspeed DVD±R/RW) from i.e. NEC and Panasonic in the same enclosure. Clearly someone is converting overstocked laptop slimline OEM burners into affordable external ones and using eBay as their one and only outlet.
See http://cgi.ebay.fr/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie ... 0002025201

[fschwep]

Just now looking at the site of this shop I saw an IBM branded Ultrabay 2000 DVD burner with exactly the same specs and the same bundled software as the one in my external enclosure which is branded Toshiba. The giveaway is the DVD-RAM capability, which seems to be fairly rare. So IBM buys from Tosh re-labeled as IBM, Tosh sell off their redundant stock of same burners to a gray eBay-outlet who slam an enclosure around it but tell you it is a Tosh drive...